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GOOD LUNCHEONS 

FOR RURAL SCHOOLS 
WITHOUT A KITCHEN 



By ELLEN H. RICHARDS 




WHITCOMB & BARROWS, BOSTON, MASS. 



GOOD LUNCHEONS 

FOR RURAL SCHOOLS 
WITHOUT A KITCHEN 

By ELLEN H. RICHARDS 




WHITCOMB & BARROWS. BOSTON, MASS. 



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LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 5 1906 

-.^Cepyrleht Entry 
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OlASS A XXc.,No, 

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Copyright 1906 
By Ellen H. Richards 



GOOD LUNCHEONS FOR RURAL 
SCHOOLS WITHOUT A KITCHEN 



THERE has been much hesitation on the part of 
even the most ardent advocates of economics 
as a pubhc school study, because of the expense in- 
volved in the fittings that are found in the large 
schools in the cities, with gas and running water. 
But if, as we believe, conditions have so changed as 
to make it imperative that " the woman who spends " 
should know something of marketable products, the 
pupils of the rural schools need the opportunity to 
gain this knowledge just as much as those living in 
the cities need it. Indeed, from the efforts making 
to revive village industries and to discover new uses 
for the materials going to waste in every country 
town, it is easy to see the opportunity of the consoli- 
dated school where food, textiles, and industries may 
be studied, with illustrations, where inspiration may be 
given and received,, and a new center of influence 
developed. 

Suggestion will bear abundant fruit if made at 
the age when impressions are permanent. 

This recommendation is no plea for fads and 
frills, taking time better spent. It is no argument 
for undue form or ceremony, but a plain statement 
of the use of that degree of orderliness and system 



which affects favorably the human mind as seen in 
the pleasure derived from orderly processions and 
balanced arrangements. 

To be specific, the luncheon taken to school 
may be good and sufficient food, but if crushed — 
jam mingled with cookies, butter squeezed over the 
doughnuts — if eaten with chalky fingers on the 
schoolhouse doorsteps in company with flies, the addi- 
tional charm of appetite is frequently wanting. 

The latest science gives us warrant for paying 
attention to ceremony and the surroundings of a 
meal, since they affect the beneficial flow of the 
digestive juices. Because a child lives in the country 
and goes to a country school is no reason why that 
child should have boorish manners or eat in a piggish 
way. Too much ceremony costs time and money, 
but a little is good for both digestion and manners. 

The noon hour in these schools should be utilized 
for social training and the acquirement of good hab- 
its and refined tastes, instead of being worse than 
wasted, as is at present too often the case. One 
evil-minded pupil turned loose in a rural school may 
demoralize the whole community. Rough games and 
horse play or sitting on a bench on the shady side 
of the schoolhouse are not the ideal recreations. Let 
there be a helpful supervision of the occupations of 
the noon hour, by a person provided by the local 
woman's club, if there is no other way, and have both 
boys and girls taught what to eat and how to eat it, 
and how to take care of the refuse, all in a spirit of 



enjoyment, not drudgery. (The school grounds will 
afford outdoor amusement in the same way.) 

The consolidated school, where most of the chil- 
dren stay for luncheon, offers the opportunity for 
having an orderly half hour for eating. Each child 
may bring his own luncheon, of course, and the first 
difficulty will arise in the secretiveness and shame of 
those who have what is termed coarser food, or whose 
mothers do not take time to provide carefully. This 
is, however, not insuperable, and in time tact and 
patience will draw in all the pupils. 

There should be a table tastefully laid, with 
flowers or fruit in the center, on the paper cloth, 
and certain common dishes disposed about. At each 
place may be a plate, of paper perhaps, with a round 

or square of paraffin paper under it to protect it 

set on one of the pretty and inexpensive doilies a 

mug or cup or glass, and a fork. A group of four 
or five pupils should be told off each day to prepare 
the table, and there should be competition and pos- 
sibly a prize to the group gaining the best results in 
the least time. Another group may prepare one 
common dish to cost not over the one or two cents 
which each child pays daily for candy. This will be 
an appetizer for the luncheon brought from home. 
This dish should be one of those which has been 
discussed and prepared several times in the course 
of the lessons on food and nutrition, which it is the 
right of every child to have in its school course. 
At the present time a sufficient number of good 



meals to serve all the purposes of illustration may 
be served without a kitchen. How ? 

First, many good foods are picked from vines 
or trees in condition to eat, with the power of the 
sun and wind and rain still in them. Kernels of 
wheat shaken from the head have been eaten from 
time immemorial, as have apples picked from the 
tree. The strongest, most agile animal, the squirrel, 
lives on nuts. Man may add to these from over- 
flowing markets many other fruits (oranges, bananas), 
many green vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes), and with 
butter, cream, cheese, eggs, and milk may make up 
a most delicious and nutritious diet. 

If to all the foods picked ready to eat there are 
added those prepared on a large scale and taken from 
packages instead of from trees, it will be seen how 
rich a variety is possible. The prepared cereals, 
crackers, zwiebach, wafers, biscuit of all varieties, 
cassava bread, rice wafers, puffed rice, popped corn 
— there is a large supply at hand. The fine quality 
of canned fruits and vegetables obtainable make it 
quite unnecessary for a rural school to fit up a 
kitchen in order to teach food values and bills of 
fare. 

The experience of most country children is that 
the pleasure of a meal is marred by the drudgery of 
cooking beforehand and of washing the greasy dishes 
afterward. Eliminate the dishwashing and a great 
gain is made. Teach the rinsing of dishes used for 
milk and the plunging of all others that are not 



greasy into cold water. Rounds may be cut from 
paraffin paper to place the food on in the plates, 
and this paper be burned after using. Paper plates 
may be used instead of china, only they must be 
burned after a time, after being handled, although it 
is a good lesson to see that the children's hands are 
clean before they touch food or dishes. Here is 
where the need of hot water comes in, and no school- 
house should be without it. It is a simple matter 
to have a small kerosene stove or a chafing dish (and 
this can be used for cooking eggs on the spot, for 
heating milk in cold weather, even to make cocoa) ; 
laundry heaters are not expensive nor troublesome to 
run. Even if the children bring their own lunches 
it is the only safe and decent thing to see that there 
are hot water and sOap and towels. The last they 
can bring from home. 

There is no need for a school to wait for even 
the kerosene stove in order to secure a kettle of hot 
water or pail of cocoa or soup or stew. The hay box 
or tireless cooker will solve the problem. It only 
means a box with packing — hay, old pillows, even 
sawdust — into which the kettle or pail is put after 
having become boiling hot and for meats kept hot 
for fifteen minutes. The larger the quantity the 
better it holds the heat. Less than one gallon needs 
careful and abundant packing, and in very cold 
weather or for long distance transportation it is well 
to warm the packing by a pail of water, which is 
taken out as the food goes in. Many appetizing 



dishes may thus be prepared and sent with the chil- 
dren to school to cook and keep hot until luncheon. 
Mothers may take turns in making up their favorite 
dishes. It will be an excellent lesson in economical 
preparation. 

There must be some psychological reason why 
nearly all children detest fats, or, quite as likely, we 
are wrong in expecting them to eat crude fat ; nuts 
and cream are a more agreeable form. Also the 
operations of cooking in the home are lengthy, and 
hours seem days to children. On the other hand, 
children as nearly universally delight in laying a table, 
putting on the food effectively, and in putting things 
back into place. There is usually an innate sense 
of order which may be fostered. If, therefore, the 
two disagreeable and time-consuming portions of 
meal serving can be eliminated a great gain will have 
been made. 

Let us see what may be done by a teacher in 
a rural school. 

As to food. It has been found out that man's 
food always contains five distinct classes of sub- 
stances. First, water, either by itself, as from well 
or spring or tap, or in milk or fruit (the apple and 
the orange have some 80 per cent in the edible 
portion) or vegetables (the potato has 75 per cent) ; 
meat also, 70 to 80 per cent. Children need one or 
two quarts a day. Second, mineral salts, of which 
most natural foods have enough. Only foods which 
have been separated from their natural forms, like 



white flour and sugar and butter, need to have some 
substance — salt, for instance — added to them or 
eaten at the same meal. 

This leaves three classes to consider in selecting 
our foods, (i) Proteid (from a Greek word meaning 
first) is of first importance, because such substances, 
always containing nitrogen, are in some unknown 
way necessary to life. Again, all natural food ma- 
terials, as fruits, nuts, milk, meat, and vegetables, 
contain nitrogen. Some are richer than others, and 
therefore these synonyms must be learned, for noth- 
ing can replace these nitrogenous compounds. 

(2) Fats. Children will soon learn that we do 
not mean only greasy or solid lumps of meat fat by 
this term, but that nuts, corn meal, oatmeal, olives, 
etc, contain a pleasant form, as do milk, cheese, and 
butter. Fat in this sense is second only to proteids 
as essential to life. 

(3) Starches and sugars, of which there are so 
many that a term, "carbohydrates," has been chosen 
to cover them all. These are most abundant and 
cheapest, and hence form the largest bulk of hu- 
man food (cereals, crackers, bread, sugar, potatoes, 
bananas). 

For each meal it is well to have all kinds, so that 
the little cells of which the body is made may find 
just what they need as the blood stream flows by 
them. Then for breakfast we may have fruit of any 
kind, fresh or dried, any of the cereals with milk or 
cream (not sugar), which gives us fat and starch, with 



sugar in the milk — the best kind. Or we may have 
crackers or bread and butter with cheese. A beaten 
Qgg will give more nitrogen if it is needed. A ba- 
nana may take the place of bread or cereals. 

For dinner it is well to have more hearty food. 
Instead of meat, nuts or cheese or eggs may be eaten 
if they have not been used for breakfast. There are 
so many good foods that it is not necessary to have 
the same thing three times a day. For older people 
salads come here, with the rich olive oil ; nuts, apples, 
celery, fruits, etc. 

For dessert, fruits, especially the hearty dried 
fruits — raisins, figs, dates — and a little pure white 
candy or chocolate. 

For supper or school luncheon it ought to be 
possible always to have plenty of clean, sweet milk, 
and there is no better food, when it is clean and 
sweet, than two glasses of milk with bread or crackers. 
There is now variety enough in crackers and biscuits 
for every day in the month. As a pleasant addition, 
some one of the dried fruits, or some jam or jelly, 
different from any used before in the day, may be 
used, but the children's supper should be of two or 
three things only. 

It is not difificult to adapt illustrations of well- 
balanced meals to local conditions, to use foods of 
equal value, to make up deficiencies in one food with 
small additions of another, as the rice-eating peoples 
use fish roe. 

In the use of language for expression of ideas, 



not only the right word for the idea, but also synony- 
mous words with a like or similar meaning, those 
which carry delicate shades of feeling, are desired to 
add variety and force to speech and writing. So in 
food it is desirable, not only to have food of the 
right composition, but to have a choice of food syn- 
onyms which are nearly enough alike to be substi- 
tuted one for the other, as taste and convenience 
dictate. This is one of the chief lessons to be 
learned in school, and which often cannot be learned 
at home. It will save time and money and be most 
beneficial to health to get these few facts before all 
school children. If no set time is allowed, it may 
be taught incidentally in connection with the school 
luncheon as here described. 

The application to the school luncheon of these 
principles, which have been explained by the teacher, 
will be by easy stages, one thing at a time, and 
chiefly by stimulating interest on the part of the 
children. Charts of food composition on the wall 
will give a basis for further study. Let the figures 
or, better, lines representing proportions impress 
themselves on the children's minds. Mere didactic 
instruction will not accomplish much. 

From "the true history of one country cooking 
school," as related by the teacher, the following 
extract is made : 

"The school committee and the teacher discussed 
the possibility of preparing warm lunches, the chil- 
dren doing the actual work, the teacher serving as 



buyer and steward. There are three objects in this 
— the health of the children, their instruction in 
cooking, and also such instruction in table manners 
as might be given without hurting their pride or 
feelings. 

"The teacher estimated that a bill of fare for 
one warm dish each noon could be provided at a 
cost of two cents a child, each bringing in addition 
bread and butter. Arrangements were to be made 
that children who had not the pennies could pay for 
their dinners by doing some work for the teacher — 
the other pupils knowing nothing of this arrangement. 

" Ready money is scarce with farmers, even as 
little as two cents a day for a goodly family ; but 
milk and vegetables are plenty, and farmers are gen- 
erous according to their means, and they often sent 
offerings, which made the expense less for the 
experiment. . . . 

" Each child brought two napkins, a knife, fork, 
spoon, plate, cup and saucer. This was the intro- 
duction of some of them to napkins. Two napkins 
were needed, because each child had to use his desk 
as a table, and tables must have tablecloths. 

" The equipments were given by various persons. 
The committeeman sent a kerosene stove with oven, 
which would not bake at all unless placed over one 
of the stoves that served to heat the room. . . . The 
other articles of household utility were half a dozen 
dish wipers, two dishcloths, mixing pan, dish pan, 
spider, frying pan, large kettle, big spoon, boxes for 



salt, pepper, flour, and some groceries that were 
kept on hand. The boys made a convenient cup- 
board for these and another for the dishes, and doors 
on them kept out the dust. ... 

" It took some planning to arrange the work so 
that lessons should not suffer nor be interfered with 
by the necessity for the cook's presence at the stove, 
but certain regulations soon worked themselves out. 
Unless a girl had her lessons she could not serve 
as cook, and there were others always glad to serve 
in her stead. . . . The cooking force consisted of 
one big girl, who ought to know something, and 
three helpers. This force was changed each week. 
The week's bill of fare was given to the big girl, 
whose duty it was to see that everything was pre- 
pared before ten minutes of nine, that the room was 
neat, that the food was put on the stove at a proper 
hour, served properly, the dishes washed, and all 
tidied again. No vegetables were peeled during 
school hours, nor other work of that order allowed 
to come in study hours. . . . 

"The cooking done by these children between 
eight and fourteen years was a revelation to the 
teacher, who had seen some of that done by their 
elders. 

" To the objection that air in a schoolroom is bad, 
and food cooked therein must be unappetizing, there 
is only one reply — a country school can have all the 
fresh air needed — and this school did. . . . 

"A small expenditure of money will fit any school 



12 



for the cooking lessons which are practical for that 
school. Interest and zeal on the part of teacher and 
pupils will make the work successful under difficulties, 
and often children learn more when things are not 
made too easy for them. Economy in use of time and 
materials, neatness, attention to one's work, regard- 
less of that of others, are good lessons to learn, and 
they will all come to the country school where cook- 
ing is taught, even without a modern improvement." 
The overworked teacher cannot be expected to 
give thought and time to such oversight in her short 
rest hour, and the taxpayers will not at first see the 
advantage to their pockets in providing extra help ; 
but the field is open to the woman's club of the town, 
and offers to them an example of cooperation, a sub- 
ject of study in perfecting details of management 
which they will be able to cope with as circumstances 
demand. No more interesting work and surely no 
more profitable occupation could be found for the 
talent now lying idle or wastefully used in every 
town in the land. 



DEC 5 19U6 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



014 519 782 fi ^ 



